Knysna Municipality said it is open for business over the festive season despite the Western Cape being in the grips of one of the worst droughts in years.
Municipal manager, Kam Chetty, said on Tuesday that thanks to forward planning and an injection of more R3m from the Western Cape Provincial Government, the drought will not affect the town's summer season readiness.
He said measures were put in place to ensure that Knysna does not run out of water during the drier summer season.
“We, therefore, encourage and welcome visitors to Greater Knysna,” Chetty said.
He said the municipal technical team has several short-term interventions in place to assist with the current water scarcity. “These include the Charlesford pipeline construction that will, once complete, increase the pumping capacity to Knysna’s off-channel Akkerkloof Dam”.
“Greater Knysna further makes use of alternate water resources such as Knysna’s Reverse Osmosis and Sedgefield’s Desalination Plants, the Bigai Spring and numerous boreholes in both Knysna and Sedgefield,” Chetty said.
He said the area recently received significant rainfall resulting in both the Gouna and Knysna Rivers flowing again.
“This has played a significant role in the balancing Glebe dam being 40 percent and the Akkerkloof storage dam 42 percent full.”
“Despite the increase in the levels of the storage dams, Greater Knysna remains on Level 3 Water Restrictions,” Chetty concluded.
